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There isn’t anything that can be said or written about Roy Halladay that would better describe what he meant to Toronto than remembering that when he was traded at his own request from the Blue Jays — after 12 seasons and 287 starts for teams that ranged from dreadful to hopefully mediocre — the fan base was understanding.

Just think about that for a moment. One only need listen to 15 minutes of sports talk radio or take the briefest glance at an online sports message board to understand what a reactive bunch we can be. Today’s uppercase GOAT is tomorrow’s lowercase. We vilify heroes and crucify saviours. We curse the odd dropped ball and rebuke the rare mental error while taking for granted the routine greatness with which the professional athlete regularly performs.

But among the litany of offences for which we are routinely outraged, none receive more indignation from a fan base than a premature exit. Reason vacates the mind of a local sports fan when a player signs elsewhere or dares request a trade. The vicarious relationship we have with sports is suspended. And the athlete moving on is not merely seeking a better opportunity or taking a job that pays him or her better (as it would be for ourselves, our friends or any other mere mortal making a similar decision); they are rejecting us with a treachery most foul.

This is the case for all but Roy Halladay.

In this April 4, 2014 file photo, Roy Halladay throws the ceremonial first pitch at the Toronto Blue Jays’ season opener.Craig Robertson /
Postmedia Network

When Halladay made his official trade request at the end of the 2009 season, we understood that he was too good for a team that simply could not compete with the powerhouse New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox. We understood that he was too good to be constantly ending losing streaks instead of starting winning streaks. We understood that he was too good to have goals as meek as playing meaningful baseball in September. And we understood that when he pitched on a Tuesday evening against the Tampa Bay Rays, he was too good to be performing in front of only 15,000 fans.

On Tuesday, after learning of his death, we might have also come to the sad understanding that he was also too good for this world.

As far as the suddenly minor-seeming issue of baseball in Toronto goes, it’s hard to believe that the fans now in their 30s and 40s would boast the same understanding for the game; difficult to imagine that there would be young moms and dads taking their children to the Rogers Centre with a comparable love for its surroundings; impossible to think any of us could interpret the game as we do without Roy Halladay.

It is because of Halladay that the Toronto Blue Jays fan base — as we know and love it in all of its blue merchandise-wearing glory today — came of age in the late naughts. Yes, cheap bleacher seats (thanks to those blessed Toronto Star Season Passes) and drunks who blogged about the listless franchise (with unceasing dedication and tremendously good looks) certainly helped, but neither would have amounted to much without the prospect of Halladay taking the mound every fifth game.

It must seem ridiculous to newly formed fans (spoiled rotten by playoff berths in two of the last three seasons) that supporters would devote so much time and energy to a franchise whose losses and lack of competitiveness were as inevitable as the outrageous prices for stadium beers, but the certitude of witnessing excellence every fifth game made all the experiences associated with the Blue Jays worthwhile.

There are several impressive statistics that can accurately portray what Halladay contributed on the field. (My personal favourite is that during his last three years with the team — when he really came into his own as the best pitcher in baseball — he completed 25 of his 96 starts. He threw a complete game every fourth time he pitched. Last season, only two pitchers had more than two complete games.) However, nothing beyond anecdotes and memories can properly measure his impact on the fan base. We might not have had single elimination wild-card playoff games, joyous bat flips or the absolute ownage of Texas Rangers relievers, but we had Halladay.

If you ask a Blue Jays fans who saw Halladay pitch in a Toronto uniform what they remember best about him, some might recall the nearly perfect game he threw in his second major-league start. Maybe they’ll remember his resurrection as a pitcher under the tutelage of Mel Queen, or they may just talk about the smaller things: the number puzzles he used to create and solve on his off days or how he used to run the stairs at the stadium to work out. Any who don’t mention his start against the New York Yankees on May 12, 2009, however, will immediately regret it.

During the 2008 off-season, A.J. Burnett, the antithesis of Halladay in many ways, opted out of his contract with the Blue Jays — as was his right — and signed an outrageous (at the time) deal with the much maligned Yankees, as was his destiny. The stars aligned, and in his first return to Toronto in 2009, he was matched up against Halladay. It was a case of our hero versus our enemy.

Roy Halladay smiles after beating the New York Yankees on May 12, 2009.Tyler Anderson /
National Post

For the first night since the 1993 World Series victory, Toronto was a baseball city again. 44,000 people showed up to the game — only the home opener had a larger attendance that season. I don’t remember how any of the runs were scored in the Blue Jays’ 5-1 victory. There are only two things about the game that stick out in my mind.

The first is the calm dominance of Halladay as he threw a perfect game through six innings (not even allowing a fly ball until the ninth). It felt preordained, like Halladay was a newly crowned monarch taking a throne to which something more powerful than providence had appointed him.

The other thing I remember is a photo that was only seen after the game. The picture is of Burnett, leaving the mound. I presume it’s after the fourth inning, when the Blue Jays scored their first three runs. He’s looking into Toronto’s dugout, and Halladay is expressionless as he watches Burnett depart. There’s an appropriately healthy distance on the bench between Halladay and any of the other players; no doubt due to his perfect game in progress, but also symbolic of his stature on the team. Above him, in the frame of the shot, are three rows of fans, all standing and yelling at Burnett. A rarity at the time: they were invested in the game, and hopeful, too.

Do you remember this line of dialogue from The Dark Knight Rises when Michael Caine’s Alfred describes what he desires for Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne?

Remember when you left Gotham? Before all this, before Batman? You were gone seven years. Seven years I waited, hoping that you wouldn’t come back. Every year, I took a holiday. I went to Florence, there’s this cafe, on the banks of the Arno. Every fine evening, I’d sit there and order a Fernet Branca. I had this fantasy, that I would look across the tables and I’d see you there, with a wife and maybe a couple of kids. You wouldn’t say anything to me, nor me to you. But we’d both know that you’d made it, that you were happy. I never wanted you to come back to Gotham. I always knew there was nothing here for you, except pain and tragedy. And I wanted something more for you than that. I still do.

That’s what it felt like for Blue Jays fans when Halladay left, and again later that year, when he threw a no-hitter in the 2010 playoffs for the Philadelphia Phillies.

If we consider fandom in professional sports at any depth, we must admit that it is a mostly useless endeavour. At best, it’s an outlet for our emotions; a way to deal with the pressures of life; an investment of time, energy and interest that sometimes brings us pleasure, but far more often brings a hopeful sense of disappointment. “We’ll get ‘em next year,” is the connotation to the muttered obscenities when our team loses.

It’s a vicarious relationship we develop with the players on the team we support, so it shouldn’t be surprising that we would react to their departure with strong feelings. Yet, for all the calmness and understanding I felt when Halladay left my team in Toronto, I feel none of that today. In its place I feel a sense of something so completely unfamiliar from all my emotional associations with this baseball player I loved: loss.